FOLLOWING FILMS - Podcast, Movies, Music, and More

The mid-1990s marked a historic, high-stakes turning point for martial arts cinema as Hong Kong’s ultimate action auteur and global icon, Jackie Chan, successfully engineered a definitive crossover into the mainstream Western market. For decades, the Western box office had attempted to compress Chan's unique kinetic style into the rigid, humorless molds of traditional Hollywood action. It was not until Chan and his legendary collaborators, including directors Stanley Tong, Sammo Hung, and Lau Kar-leung, brought the raw, physics-defying brilliance of Hong Kong stunt design directly onto international soil that the global cinematic landscape was permanently reshaped. This golden era represents a flawless synchronization of classical martial arts purity, grand-scale international ambition, and breathtaking physical sacrifice. To truly appreciate this cinematic trajectory, one must examine these landmark films through a fascinating dual lens. As these productions traveled across the gl...

In the summer of 1995, video game adaptations in Hollywood were widely considered a death sentence. The industry was still reeling from the critical disasters of Super Mario Bros. and Street Fighter , making the prospect of translating a controversial, ultra-violent arcade fighter into a mainstream film seem nearly impossible. Enter a young British director named Paul W.S. Anderson. Armed with a modest budget, a dedication to practical Thai locations, and a legendary techno soundtrack, Anderson accomplished what few thought possible. He crafted a cinematic experience that respected its source material, bypassed the curse of the genre, and captured the raw, unadulterated energy of nineties arcade culture. The primary reason Mortal Kombat succeeds where other adaptations fail is its structural simplicity. Instead of overcomplicating the narrative or drowning the audience in dense mythology, the film lifts its plot straight from the tournament structure of the original 1992 game, drawin...

The year 1978 changed martial arts cinema forever. It was the exact moment Jackie Chan broke free from the shadow of Bruce Lee to redefine the genre with Snake in the Eagle's Shadow and Drunken Master. Right on the cusp of that creative revolution lay one final artifact of his transitional period with director Lo Wei: Magnificent Bodyguards. As the very first Hong Kong martial arts film shot natively in 3D, it has long been treated as a legendary curio. For decades, poor home video transfers stripped the film of its technical hook, leaving audiences with a flat kung fu slog accompanied by a stolen soundtrack. With modern restoration efforts rescuing the film's original identity from obscurity, it can finally be evaluated through its intended stereoscopic presentation. Magnificent Bodyguards emerges not as a masterpiece of narrative depth, but as a wild, gimmicky piece of late-70s exploitation showmanship that demands to be viewed in all its three-dimensional absurdity. At its c...

In the summer of 1991, Hollywood delivered a medieval epic that would define the era’s approach to the summer blockbuster. Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves, directed by Kevin Reynolds, arrived on a wave of massive hype, fueled by Kevin Costner's post-Oscars star power and a chart-topping power ballad by Bryan Adams. Looking back at the original 143-minute theatrical cut, the film remains a fascinating, deeply entertaining, and tonally bizarre artifact of 1990s studio filmmaking. It is a movie that succeeds not because it is a seamless masterpiece, but because its wild contradictions somehow fuse into pure cinematic joy. The plot follows a familiar trajectory but anchors it in a grittier, post-Crusades reality. Robin of Locksley escapes a brutal prison in Jerusalem alongside a Moorish warrior named Azeem. Upon returning to England, Robin finds his father murdered, his family estate ruined, and the local populace suffering under the tyrannical rule of the Sheriff of Nottingham. Fleeing ...

The sleek, matte-black silhouette of the modified Gazelle helicopter cuts through the hazy Los Angeles skyline like a predatory insect, a visual metaphor for the encroaching surveillance state that feels even more pointed today than it did in 1983. John Badham’s Blue Thunder is a remarkable piece of high-octane populist filmmaking, a relic of an era when practical effects and stunt flying carried a weight and physical presence that digital wizardry simply cannot replicate. It is a film of grit, sweat, and kerosene, grounded by a weary, soulful performance from Roy Scheider that elevates what could have been a standard police procedural into a haunting meditation on the erosion of privacy and the terrifying potential of militarized domestic policing. Revisiting the film in an age of drones and ubiquitous data collection reveals a prophetic edge that is genuinely unsettling. The titular aircraft is not just a weapon; it is a mobile panopticon, capable of "looking into a bedroom wind...

It is a strange thing to watch a movie from 1998 and feel like you are looking at a lost artifact from 1984. Paul W.S. Anderson’s Soldier is a film that arrived at the wrong time, perhaps even on the wrong planet, but it carries the DNA of a very specific, very muscular era of science fiction. It feels like a cousin to the grit of The Terminator or the blue-collar exhaustion of Aliens. It lacks the slick, digital sheen that would soon define the turn of the century, opting instead for massive, practical sets, heavy pyrotechnics, and a lead performance that is almost entirely silent. It is a movie built on the back of Kurt Russell’s squint, and in the late nineties, that wasn’t quite enough for a cynical audience. But looking at it today, it feels like a masterpiece of minimalist storytelling tucked inside a maximalist action shell. The connection to 1984 isn’t just about the vibe; it is literal. David Webb Peoples wrote the screenplay, and he is the same man who co-wrote Blade Runner. ...

The release of Adventure Calls! Karl May at CCC marks a significant milestone for North American fans of European cult cinema. For decades, the massive popularity of Karl May in Germany was something of a mystery to American audiences, but this collection from the Masters of Cinema series finally provides a definitive look at the lavish, globe-trotting spectacles produced by Artur Brauner. These films represent a bridge between the classic Hollywood adventures of the fifties and the more gritty, violent landscapes of the Spaghetti Western, offering a brand of escapism that is as visually stunning as it is historically fascinating. Karl May was a man who famously wrote about worlds he had never visited, yet his ability to capture the spirit of adventure made him a literary titan. Brauner’s CCC Film took that literary spirit and translated it into a cinematic language that dominated European box offices throughout the sixties. Old Shatterhand and Winnetou and Shatterhand in the Valley of...

When it comes to the golden age of the drive-in, few experiences could match the sheer, unadulterated joy of the double feature. It was a time when narrative logic took a backseat to high-concept monsters and the kind of atmospheric grime that only a low-budget production could provide. VCI Entertainment has tapped directly into that nostalgia with their Creepy Double Feature line, and their latest Blu-ray pairing brings together two titans of 1963 psychotronic cinema: The Crawling Hand and The Slime People. This disc is a celebration of a very specific era in independent filmmaking—a moment where the atomic dread of the fifties began to melt into the weird, pop-infused sensibilities of the early sixties. On one hand, you have the localized, noir-tinged horror of a space-borne limb terrorizing a California boarding house; on the other, a sprawling, fog-drenched vision of a subterranean invasion that turns Los Angeles into a claustrophobic wasteland. While these films were birthed from ...

The Pang brothers’ 2002 supernatural horror film The Eye (original title Gin Gwai ) remains a seminal work within the East Asian horror boom of the early millennium. While it is often grouped alongside J-horror classics like Ringu or Ju-On , this Hong Kong and Thai co-production distinguishes itself through a unique blend of visceral body horror and a deeply empathetic character study. It explores the terrifying intersection of sensory perception and identity, asking what happens when the very tools we use to navigate the world become windows into a reality we were never meant to witness. The film is far more than a collection of jump scares; it is a meditation on the burden of sight and the inescapable weight of the past. The narrative follows Mun, a twenty year old classical violinist who has been blind since the age of two. When she undergoes a risky corneal transplant to restore her vision, the initial wonder of light and color quickly curdles into a nightmare. As her sight retur...